


Risking Hope

by Philomytha



Category: Sharing Knife - Bujold
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Character Study, F/M, Marriage, Miscarriage, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arkady sees a spark</p>
            </blockquote>





	Risking Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'new life' at the lmb_challenge LJ community

Arkady looked up from clearing a space in Berry's kitchen to suit preparing medicines when Sumac came in. She was glowing from exercising her horses, her hair damp with sweat and her ground shining. Arkady smiled at her, then stared. The wooden spoon he had been holding clattered to the floor. Her ground was not merely shining; there was a second glow within it. It was a sight he could never mistake.

Remembered grief, terror, the risk of hope, all rushed through him as he stood paralysed. The part of him that was a medicine maker counted back coolly: yes, her fertile time had been two days ago, and they had made love just before and again during it, everything worked out. All tidy, all logical. He stared at the spark, allowing it to fill his awareness. It was bright and strong, but he had seen bright and strong sparks vanish into nothing before. So small, so fragile, so full of promise...

Sumac had spoken, but he was so entranced by the spark that he didn't respond. An experienced maker couldn't fall into groundlock as easily as this, but he was a good part of the way there. He thought he'd been through every possible response to a new conception with Bryna, from pretending it wasn't there to waking up four times a night to check it was still there, every combination of hope and paralysing terror, grief-worn cynicism, despair and joy. But suddenly it was all new again, all his emotions and thoughts were fresh. Raw.

"Arkady, what is it? Do I have something in my hair? What's wrong?"

A flicker of concern ran through her ground, and Arkady forced himself to look up, meeting her eye. His mouth was too dry to answer, but as Sumac came to frown worriedly at him, he reached out and laid his hand over her womb.

He felt her turn her attention inward, looking for the spark, and the flares of joy that went off in her ground nearly dazzled him. He found himself seized in her arms and whirled in a rapturous dance around the kitchen.

"So shall we get string-bound? Right away?" she asked when they came to a rest in a corner. "It's too early for you to tell if it's a girl, isn't it?"

Arkady recovered his voice, a little breathless. "Yes, it's much too early. It hasn't even implanted yet." All the things that could go wrong were whisking around in circles through his mind. Even in ordinary circumstances, this little spark was often snuffed out, and he couldn't bring himself to believe that these were ordinary circumstances.

He knew what Sumac's face would look like, if this spark of life failed and he had to tell her. He knew, too, what it would feel like if he had to reach into her and take the ground from that spark to save her life.

"String-binding," Sumac repeated, recapturing his fragmented attention. "You said, once we knew whether we could..."--a gesture to her womb.

"No. Not yet," Arkady said at once, and wasn't sure whether this was panic or prudence. "It's very early ... you know it might not..."

Sumac sat suddenly on the settle by the hearth and pulled him down with her.

"It might not make it," she finished for him. "I know that." She held him close for a moment, then faced him. "But when will you be ready? I'm not a child, I know things can go wrong at any point. Are you going to wait until the birth? But some babies die in their first year. After that? When will it be certain enough for you?"

In her ground Arkady saw the pain, the fear of losing him, that drove her blunt tongue. He bowed his head for a moment and tried to muster words to answer her honestly.

"I love you. I love you more than I can say. But if we get string-bound now, and it turns out that my seed is blighted and you suffer the way Bryna did, what then?"

Her eyes widened as he voiced his most secret fear. "I don't think your seed is blighted," she said quietly.

"It could be. It happens, sometimes. And Bryna went on to have children, so it wasn't her."

Sumac stroked a hand down his back. "Or it could have been some other problem. You don't know." She smiled hopefully at him. "It's not that I don't want children. I do. But right now I want you more."

Arkady shook his head. "You don't know what it could be like. I don't want you ever to know." He paused. "You once said you didn't ever want me to go near a malice, even though you've been near a dozen or more. I don't want you to go near this kind of pain."

"If it was a choice between you facing a malice, and losing you… we'd face that blighted malice. And teach it mortality. I'll face this with you, if I have to."

Her bright courage glowed before him, and he loved her for it, but he feared it wasn't enough. He had to make her understand. Did he understand himself? He took a breath, tried to borrow her courage to speak, to explain.

"In ten years of marriage," he said, slowly, painfully, "Bryna and I faced this grief twenty-two times. Twice she nearly died of her miscarriages, because of my interference. By the end she was used up. She wouldn't so much as let me lay a hand on her, even for her comfort, in the last year before she asked me to cut strings with her." He looked into Sumac's eyes, his ground wide open. "And we loved each other very much, at the start. We both swore we'd endure any pain together, we'd face death and despair. But this ate our love and courage like a malice blights the earth."

Sumac was silent. Then she pulled him close, and Arkady found he was shaking. A hot tear escaped down his face, and he swallowed hard, not wanting to spread his terrified misery to Sumac. Sumac held him, her ground steadfast, strong, loving. His ragged breathing steadied, he cleared his throat, but did not speak. He seemed empty of words. Too much truth at once could do that.

"It's true," she said at length. "I don't know what I'd feel if I—" she hesitated, then said bluntly, "if I miscarry. Neither do you. I'm not Bryna."

"But I'm still myself."

"Are you? The same as you were twenty years ago?"

He let out his breath, acknowledging this.

"I only know what I feel now. I want to be with you. And now—now that I have conceived, we're blood-bound anyway, even if we aren't string-bound. Whether this survives or not, everything has changed. You can't protect me from this now."

At that, Arkady raised his head. It was true. He had accepted this possibility when he had agreed to ride north with Sumac. No, earlier, when he had first permitted himself to acknowledge his attraction to her. Those had been the first steps on a road that he had known could lead to death and grief. And now Sumac was walking that road with him, and he wasn't going to let her think she was alone.

He thought back to his words to Dag at New Moon Cutoff. What he had said then was true, but living it was as hard as it had always been. _Don't let fear swallow all your happiness. Don't forget to take joy._

Eyes still closed, he sensed the bright life-spark growing inside Sumac, and allowed himself to feel joy. It hurt, strangely, almost as much as the terror.

_Don't forget to have hope._

He opened his eyes. "All right," he said, steadying himself as if about to begin a complex piece of groundwork. "You're right. When would you like to get string-bound?"

Sumac caught her breath and went still, but he could sense the bubbling joy building inside her at his words, and he knew this was the right decision.

"Whit and Berry are leaving in ten days to go north," she said at length. "We could travel with them as far as West Blue, and then go on to Hickory Lake." Her voice softened. "Ten days is long enough to get past a lot of the initial problems, isn't it?"

Arkady swallowed, nodded.

"Good. Then, if all has gone well, we'll get string-bound just beforehand, have a party here with everyone, and then we can go north together."

Arkady let his assent fill his ground. As Sumac saw it, she seized him in an embrace so tight as to cut off his breath, then pulled back far enough to kiss him, long and hard. Arkady bathed in her joy, and let it wash away his fear. He couldn't shelter her from this, so they would walk this road together wherever it led.


End file.
